PTR Patch 4.1 Blizzard Post + Official PTR Patch Notes!

Blizzard has just made a detailed post about the changes we can expect in patch 4.1! If you've already checked out our awesome Patch 4.1 Mini-Guide, much of this will come to no surprise, but Blizzard has made an extremely welcome addition - official PTR patch notes!

Be sure to read Zarhym's detailed post announcing the return of Zul'Gurub and Zul'Aman as 5-player Cataclysm Heroics, as well as some interesting information about upcoming class changes below. Also, you can check out the patch notes (fully Wowhead linkified, of course) after the break! Or, you can check 'em out right here!

That's right, folks. Development on the first major content patch for World of Warcraft: Cataclysm is well underway! We're currently making preparations to bring some of the initial content and updates we've been working on for this patch to the Public Test Realms. So you ask, "what will we find in the first 4.1 test client?" (You did ask that, right?) Well, let me tell you!

The Gurubashi Tribe Persists

Originally a 20-player dungeon released in patch 1.7, Zul'Gurub will once again open its gates, featuring updated lore, all-new encounters, achievements, and improved loot! Zul'Gurub is now a level-85 five-player Heroic difficulty dungeon. To provide a new tier above the current Cataclysm dungeons, players can expect to find epic-quality item level 353 loot. The minimum average item level to enter this Heroic dungeon is 346.

The Return of Zul'Aman

Ever a player favorite, the level-70 ten-player dungeon of Zul'Aman is being reintroduced as a level-85 Heroic five-player dungeon. Zul'Aman will join Zul'Gurub in a new Dungeon Finder tier of Heroic dungeons, providing epic-quality item level 353 loot. The minimum average item level to enter this Heroic dungeon is also 346. While Zul'Aman will be more of a throwback to the original dungeon featuring many of the same encounters, players can expect to find some updated gameplay mechanics, as well as new environment textures and lighting.

With the Zuls returning, you may be wondering about the unique mounts that were once contained therein. We're pleased to announce that new versions of the rare raptor, tiger, and bear mounts will be available, while the old versions of these mounts will remain unique to those who already have them. We'll reveal more about how these updated mounts can be obtained in the future.

Class Design

While we do intend to make fewer balance changes in patch 4.1, you can still expect to find a fair number of updates. Below are just a few we'd like to share with you right now. Keep in mind these changes don't encompass the entirety of the 4.1 changes, nor do the initial Public Test Realm patch notes.

To start, we want to do a better job of balancing the AoE power of the different damage-dealing specs. You can expect to see some changes to this end made throughout the testing process.

is now available at level 56. It was intended to solve an excess rage problem that largely isn’t affecting warriors anymore. We’ve added a replacement ability for warriors at level 83: Rallying Cry.

Colossus Smash now ignores 70% of an opponent's armor, down from 100%. We are compensating Fury and Arms warriors by increasing the damage of other attacks.

Word of Glory: We want Retribution and Protection paladins to have reasonable healing on themselves or others, but we know paladins sometimes feel like they can’t use their Holy Power on anything but their heals in some situations. We’d rather these two specs spend most of their Holy Power on damage-dealing abilities, with occasional healing.

More To Come

We're still hard at work on additional features, balance updates, and bug fixes for patch 4.1. We look forward to sharing more information with you in the days and weeks ahead as we release new content on the Public Test Realms. Until then, have a look at the patch notes we've prepared thus far. As always, these notes are not final and will continue to change as we go through the iterative development and testing processes.

Don't forget the check out the Official 4.1 PTR Patch Notes after the break!

Official 4.1 PTR Patch Notes

Important: These patch notes are not final. Additional updates will be made, and all existing changes are subject to revision during the course of the testing process. More information regarding patch 4.1 can be found here. Visit our Public Test Realm forum for more information about the testing process.

has been redesigned and decoupled from shaman Fire totems. Instead, it now pulses that same area-of-effect from each target that is afflicted by the shaman's own debuff. It now damages all enemies except the target hit by Flame Shock. The ability's cooldown has been reduced from 4 seconds, down from 10.

now lasts for 60 seconds, up from 21.

's area-of-effect threat pulse no longer affects critters.

Talent Specializations

Elemental Combat

is no longer a channeled spell. It now has a 2-second cast time, lasts for 10 seconds, and has a 10-second cooldown. Its damage has been reduced by 40% from its channeled version.

Enhancement

Improved Fire Nova has been redesigned and replaced by a talent called . When an enemy spell cast is successfully prevented with Wind Shear or Grounding Totem, the shaman gains magical resistance (in an amount equal to what a protection totem/aura would grant, stacking with such buffs) to the spell school(s) of the interrupted spell (except for Holy spells), lasting 10 seconds.

Colossus Smash now ignores 70% of an opponent's armor, down from 100%.

is now available at level 56.

now has a 1.5-second stun, down from 3 seconds.

damage has been increased to 140% weapon damage, up from 125%.

(new ability) is available from trainers at level 83. It temporarily grants the warrior and all party or raid members within 30 yards 20% of maximum health for 10 seconds. After the effect expires, the health is lost. It has no cost, no stance requirements, and is not on the global cooldown. It has a 3-minute cooldown, but also shares a cooldown with .

now has its cooldown reduced by 6 seconds when it deals damage to 4 or more targets. The Whirlwind effect caused by remains unchanged.

Talent Specializations

Arms

now reduces the global cooldown on by 0.5/1 seconds in addition to its current effects.

increases damage by 20/40%, up from 10/20%.

no longer adds 2 seconds to the stun, but instead lowers the cooldown of by 3 seconds (to 12 seconds total).

damage has been increased to 175% weapon damage, up from 150%.

Fury

damage has been increased back up to 120% weapon damage (up from 100%).

Dungeons & Raids

New dungeons available for partial testing.

Zul'Aman has returned as a level-85 5-player Heroic dungeon featuring a revamp of the original dungeon and improved loot!

Zul'Gurub has returned as a level-85 5-player Heroic dungeon featuring all-new encounters, achievements, and improved loot!

Both dungeons will be in a new Dungeon Finder difficulty tier above the current level-85 Heroic dungeons and offer epic-quality item level 353 loot.

These dungeons may only partially be available for testing at this time. Stay tuned for additional updates.

Further improvements have been made in the Maloriak encounter to avoid Flash Freeze targeting the tanks.

Guilds

The Guild Perk, Cash Flow, no longer prints out text to the Chat Log. Instead, the daily amount deposited is shown in the Guild Vault Money Log. In addition, players can view the weekly contribution in a new window at the bottom of the Money Log.

We have added two new custom guild tabards as Guild Rewards. The tabards are account bound and offer a bonus to gaining guild reputation.

Items

The PvP Horde and Alliance trinkets have a new spell effect.

Professions

All major cities will now have every type of profession trainer and their associated trade supply vendors.

PvP

Players will now only spawn at their base graveyard when they die in the enemy base.

Defending players will respawn at the middle graveyard.

Midfield players will respawn at the middle graveyard.

Attacking players will respawn at their base graveyard.

Races

The gnomish racial ability, , is no longer affected by the global cooldowns triggered by other abilities.

The human racial ability, , has a new spell effect.

User Interface

Work has begun on a new Looking for Guild system. Further details will be provided when we are ready for feedback.Spells bound to a key now start to be cast when the button is pressed down by default, instead of waiting for the key to go up. This is an option that can be turned off in the Interface menu under Combat. Mouse clicking has not changed and operates on mouse click up.

Comments

Comment by MorecofRivendare

on 2011/02/25 06:58:30

Not bad, not bad at all. All I care to learn about, however, is whether or not Morec'aka (or Ohgan'aka, or <player's name>'aka) is alright! I will save you adorable, skull catching, murloc-eating, former-raid-escaping raptor hatchling!

That, and who the boss of Zul'aman will be. Will they just recycle the whole thing and have Zul'jin as the boss, or will they have someone new. Zul'gurub's boss is obviously Hakkar.

Comment by Erson

on 2011/02/25 07:35:16

So Escape Artist is off CD with other items, what about WotF?

Comment by Blevlitz

on 2011/02/25 08:20:04

That, and who the boss of Zul'aman will be. Will they just recycle the whole thing and have Zul'jin as the boss, or will they have someone new. Zul'gurub's boss is obviously Hakkar.

Insight into some of the bosses.

Comment by Ressolute

on 2011/02/25 14:12:36

I believe that removing the CD of WoG is in ADDITION to what it currently is.

Comment by Magedraenei

on 2011/02/25 16:42:04

Am I seriously the only mage freaking out over rogues moving faster while in stealth mode? I mean really? good thing this is the early phase of PTR testing...

Comment by shinazueli

on 2011/02/25 17:27:10

Seriously? I don't play a rogue, but I'm pretty sure they could give rogues a button called 'stomps mage face' and you'd still be able to solo 4 of them. Shuddup.

Comment by Treskol

on 2011/02/25 17:36:41

Am I seriously the only mage freaking out over rogues moving faster while in stealth mode? I mean really? good thing this is the early phase of PTR testing...

It's only a buff to Combat and Muti

And really, no mage should lose to them

Comment by MorecofRivendare

on 2011/02/25 21:29:03

That, and who the boss of Zul'aman will be. Will they just recycle the whole thing and have Zul'jin as the boss, or will they have someone new. Zul'gurub's boss is obviously Hakkar.

Insight into some of the bosses.

Looking like Zul'aman with be a rehash...

But will be not be able to kill the Bloodlord and Jin'do in Zul'gurub? Most dissapointing...

EDIT: And could it be... Death Knight changes that are not nerfs? IT IS THE END OF THE WORLD!

Comment by Interest

on 2011/02/25 21:50:14

That, and who the boss of Zul'aman will be. Will they just recycle the whole thing and have Zul'jin as the boss, or will they have someone new. Zul'gurub's boss is obviously Hakkar.

Insight into some of the bosses.

Looking like Zul'aman with be a rehash...

But will be not be able to kill the Bloodlord and Jin'do in Zul'gurub? Most dissapointing...

EDIT: And could it be... Death Knight changes that are not nerfs? IT IS THE END OF THE WORLD!

L-mao.

Comment by HoleofArt

on 2011/02/25 22:02:43

However, it gave Protection Paladins a lot more durability than they deserved. They nerfed it once for a reason. Even after that, I had trouble DYING on my Paladin unless it was due to a one-shot mechanic or something.

No. In a progressive raiding environment, this simply is not the case. It isn't reliable self-heal (in that you can't rely on it to save you from wipes), and it's really not that large, or even needed. It is amazing at lower levels, yes, but it's really a huge part of their survivability.

And for PvP? Prot at 85 isn't exactly popular.. or viable.. so that can't be the case.

If WoG is too much healing in Blizzard's eyes, I'd like a nerf to Savage Defense and Blood DKs. May as well get Critical Block nerfed too.

Comment by Interest

on 2011/02/25 22:19:17

However, it gave Protection Paladins a lot more durability than they deserved. They nerfed it once for a reason. Even after that, I had trouble DYING on my Paladin unless it was due to a one-shot mechanic or something.

No. In a progressive raiding environment, this simply is not the case. It isn't reliable self-heal (in that you can't rely on it to save you from wipes), and it's really not that large, or even needed. It is amazing at lower levels, yes, but it's really a huge part of their survivability.

And for PvP? Prot at 85 isn't exactly popular.. or viable.. so that can't be the case.

If WoG is too much healing in Blizzard's eyes, I'd like a nerf to Savage Defense and Blood DKs. May as well get Critical Block nerfed too.

Savage Defense and Critical Block are "block mechanics" similar to the Paladin block mechanics.

Blood DK self healing...on the other hand...(although I guess Blood Shield can work as a "block mechanic" but...ehhh)

Comment by HoleofArt

on 2011/02/25 22:22:54

That wasn't really the point :P

The point was that this nerf is completely and utterly unnecessary. It also completely trivializes a core talent in their tree.

Comment by Interest

on 2011/02/25 22:29:56

That wasn't really the point :P

The point was that this nerf is completely and utterly unnecessary. It also completely trivializes a core talent in their tree.

That's why I said the cooldown is probably too long. I know what they're trying to go after.

Comment by linkhyrule

on 2011/02/25 23:50:41

Time to screw over the classes again, just in time for the release of RIFT, lol

No body gives a damn about crappy rift.

Comment by HoleofArt

on 2011/02/25 23:59:09

That wasn't really the point :P

The point was that this nerf is completely and utterly unnecessary. It also completely trivializes a core talent in their tree.

That's why I said the cooldown is probably too long. I know what they're trying to go after.

*grumble*

Comment by Interest

on 2011/02/26 02:00:55

That wasn't really the point :P

The point was that this nerf is completely and utterly unnecessary. It also completely trivializes a core talent in their tree.

That's why I said the cooldown is probably too long. I know what they're trying to go after.

*grumble*

If they made it 10 seconds then possibly brought back the old Guarded By The Light it may be comparable to Death Strike (and possibly the Blood Shield mastery)...without making it too strong.

Comment by Venci

on 2011/02/26 09:07:52

dont forget to add sound effect to the new drakes /mountspecialand a vissible effect to landslide proc. tnx

Comment by Venci

on 2011/02/26 09:17:01

Word of Glory now has a 20-second cooldown.

Actually, this is a good change. Protection Paladins are especially too strong with a no cooldown heal like that.

It's not a "no cooldown heal". It requires holy power charges, and there is already a cooldown (shared) on spells that generate holy power. It takes 13.5 seconds to build up 3 charges, so it's currently 15 seconds between heals (adding one GCD).

With a good healer, tankadins would rarely be using holy power to heal, anyway; they'd be using it mainly for Shield of the Righteous (single-target) or Inquisition (AoE).

This talent essentially makes it impossible for protection paladins to use Divine Plea (with Shield of the Templar) to heal twice in a row in emergencies (thus making Shield of the Templar less useful, and Divine Plea almost useless, since mana is very rarely an issue). It also makes Guarded by the Light less useful.

It seems another one of those "let's force people to play a certain way" changes that Blizzard has been so fond of in Cataclysm (all weapons the same speed, holy power and runic power behaving more and more like warrior rage, lots of abilities clones between classes, etc.). Because some clueless tanks were wasting their holy power to heal when they didn't need to (instead of using SotR to do damage and keep aggro), now the ones that knew when to use DP and WoG can't use them when they need to.

/sigh

Yes, this is true.

However, it gave Protection Paladins a lot more durability than they deserved. They nerfed it once for a reason. Even after that, I had trouble DYING on my Paladin unless it was due to a one-shot mechanic or something.

Now I will say this: the cooldown is a bit too long.

They should make the cooldown long enough that Eternal Glory/other combos won't result in an "unkillable" tank/dps purely dictated by RNG (a bit too strong in both PvE and PvP), but short enough that it remains pretty accessible outside of spamming it (i.e. to reduce downtime or for a quick heal periodically). 20 seconds is likely too long because of this. However, I do agree WoG needs one.

well its hardly spamable. still ull need to keep up the threat on the target and u have one HP on 3sec (3,5) so spamming WoG can be done only with EG proc and EG proc is not procing that much. so ether way u cant spam it. And so.. this nerf is unnesesary . but when Blizzard boys wanna make ppl go from Tank to Dps or Heal and w8 for 1h queue to random heroic , fine . GL

Comment by Sententia

on 2011/02/26 18:38:32

Time to screw over the classes again, just in time for the release of RIFT, lol

No body gives a damn about crappy rift.

"You take the Blizz pill, the story ends, you wake up in your warcraft bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the Trion pill, you stay in Telara, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes."

Last I heard, around 1.5 to 2 million people have pre-ordered Rift so I suppose there are some who care.

Comment by droodspeaking

on 2011/02/27 18:21:29

bg rule no.1: Don't go near warriorsbg rule no.2: Don't let warriors come near youbg rule no.3: Cry coz they did and reroll into onelife rule: if you can't fight them join themBefore all warriors start saying i'm wrong and all , just look at your new talents... mortal strike 60% extra damage overpower (realy? an actual move named overpower is OVERPOWERED) 60% extra damage slam 40% extra damage.Sure colossus smash got nerfed (i wonder why) but now every hit (auto hit or not) has a 6% chanse of reseting it's cooldown...i guess i'm gonna have to play with all my alts for the next few weeks or switch to pve, if i get pwned by a human warrior who just turned 85 i'm gonna kill my self (after killing all wow developers).I would realy like to be proven wrong here,so tell me if you think i am